sense, there may be an easily ɹxable reason. They may simply be
hungry or tired. Or maybe they’ve been in the car too long. Or
maybe it’s just because they’re two (or three, or four, or ɹve—or
ɹfteen). But other times, a child acts out or behaves
uncharacteristically because of more deep-seated reasons.
For example, as Tina and Scott spoke later that night, they
agreed that their son’s surprising right-brained response likely
resulted from a mildly traumatic experience he had undergone
three years earlier, an experience he probably wasn’t even thinking
about. Tina knew this was a great time to introduce her son to a
couple of important facts about the brain, so at bedtime that night,
that’s what she did. Before we tell you about that conversation, we
should ɹrst explain what Tina was trying to accomplish when she
talked to her son. She knew that one of the best ways to help a
child deal with diɽcult experiences is to understand some basics
about the science of how memory works in the brain.
MEMORY AND THE BRAIN: A COUPLE OF MYTHS
Let’s start with two myths about memory.
Myth #1: Memory is a mental ɹle cabinet. When you think back
about your ɹrst date or the birth of your child, you just open the
appropriate file drawer in your brain and call up that memory.It would be nice and convenient if this were true, but that’s just
not the way the brain works. There aren’t thousands of little
“memory ɹles” in your head waiting for you to access them and
bring them to consciousness so you can think about them. Instead,
memory is all about associations. As an association machine, the
brain processes something in the present moment—an idea, a